Have you deconstructed the title to this one yet? The New York Times reports on the role blogs are playing in disseminating news and information about the Tsunami in South and South East Asia:

For vivid reporting from the enormous zone of tsunami disaster, it was hard to beat the blogs.

The so-called blogosphere, with its personal journals published on the Web, has become best known as a forum for bruising political discussion and media criticism. But the technology proved a ready medium for instant news of the tsunami disaster and for collaboration over ways to help.

I know that this post is a bit self-serving in that it occurs as a blog entry which is pointing out the value of blogs, but nonetheless I think it shows neophytes or the jaded non-believers that blogs can be relevant and worthy of a visit even if non-political in nature.

Bloggers at the scene are more deeply affected by events than the journalists who roam from one disaster to another, said Xeni Jardin, one of the four co-editors of the site BoingBoing.net, which pointed visitors to many of the disaster blogs.

“They are helping us understand the impact of this event in a way that other media just can’t,” with an intimate voice and an unvarnished perspective, with the richness of local context, Ms. Jardin said.

That makes blogs compelling – and now essential – reading, said Dr. Siva Vaidhyanathan, an assistant professor of culture and communication at New York University and a blogger. Once he heard about the disaster, “Right after BBC, I went to blogs,” he said.

The following quote in the article demonstrates the dedication of (or metal defect within) bloggers:

Dr. Vaidhyanathan said he was leaving for a long-planned trip to India today and, if possible, hoped to visit relatives in Madras. “As long as there is electricity and Internet access, I’ll blog,” he said.

I personally think that is a much cooler motto than that of the post office.